Application
by William Easley
Summary: Reaching a goal can be demanding. To do it, you need determination, dedication, and especially . . . application. A short one-shot about the present and the future.


**Application**

 **(July 31, 2014)**

 _Thank you for your interest in applying to the **Joint Enrollment Program of Cardell Junior College** for fall semester, 2014. Please follow this checklist to complete your application. IMPORTANT REMINDER: To process your application for fall classes, which begin on Tuesday, September 2, we must receive your application materials no later than 5:00 PM, Friday, August 8._

 _The program is open to high-school juniors and seniors only. Do you qualify?_

Yes. I am a junior at Gravity Falls High School.

 _Please check whether you are applying as a day or night student._

 _( ) Day (X) Night_

 _Since high-school students are still taking a full load of classes for their normal school year, you will be limited to no more than two classes per term for joint-enrollment credit. How many hours of college credit do you wish to attempt per semester?_

6 semester hours

 _Please list the three references who have written or will write recommendations and indicate their roles (i.e. John Smith, teacher, XYZ High School)_

 **Dr. Stanford Pines, former employer**

 **Mr. Keith Halpers, teacher, Gravity Falls High School**

 **Mrs. Judith Emerson Flanagan, counselor, Gravity Falls High School**

 _ESSAY. In the space provided, please write an essay explaining your goals for college and the reasons you wish to enroll in the Joint Enrollment Program of Cardell Junior College._

* * *

My name is Wendy Corduroy, and I'll be honest about this: When I began high school, I had no goals. At that age, I thought school was just a waste of time and a bore, and I'll admit that I preferred hanging out with my friends and trying to find a little excitement to attending classes.

That has changed. I'm not sure if it's just a matter of my getting a little older and more mature, or if it's that I've made new friends, good role models who have a kind of purpose and motivation in their lives that I admire, or just that I want more out of life now, but I have developed a drive and an ambition to better myself. As you can see from my official high-school transcript, I have pulled my grades up and now carry a 4.05 GPA. I hope to improve that in the next school year.

Eventually, I want to attend a nationally-ranked college for my undergraduate degree, but looking at my friend who is going to the same institution made me realize I will need a head start. For this and next year, my goal is simple: I want to attend Cardell Junior College to accumulate at least twelve semester hours of college-level credit in the basics: English composition, mathematics, and science. Eventually I intend to major in environmental science, with a specific concentration on forestry and resource management.

Let me add something else: My father, Daniel Corduroy, is a lumberjack. He never attended college and in fact never completed high school. Yet I have seen him at work and I know how expert he is at his job, and how much he loves the woods and his industry. I also have come to realize that he not only harvests trees, but cares for and nurtures them. After weeks of backbreaking labor cutting down and hauling timber, he spends more weeks replanting. At least one day of each week he visits in rotation the different stretches where he has started seedlings to make sure they are growing well and not suffering from disease. He puts in sixty-hour weeks doing what he loves.

He trained me in this tradition. I've listed these achievements on a separate information form, but please consider this: I won first place in the Pacific Northwest Lumberjack Competition, Junior Division (which included both males and females), in 2007, 2009, 2010, and 2011 (I missed 2008 only because of a broken arm). I have been awarded both gold and silver medals in the Oregon State Lumberjack Games every year since 2007, including a silver award for the year when my arm was still healing and a gold medal with a special commendation last fall. Like my father, I have come to love the forests and to care for them. The field of study I have chosen will help insure the future of those forests.

As for my work experience, in the late spring of 2012, when I had just turned fifteen, Dr. Pines hired me as a counter clerk and cashier in the Mystery Museum, a nationally-known collection of oddities and scientific curiosities. For three years now, I have put in forty-hour weeks in the summer at the Museum, working my way up from cashier to Assistant Manager. When school begins, I will still work part-time: twenty hours a week from September through early December, then again from April through June, and back to full time for the summer season. I am saving for my college education and currently dedicate more than half my salary to this goal.

Yet I pledge this to you: Without changing my work schedule, I will find a way to attend and earn six credit hours per term at Cardell, and I will maintain an A average. My references will tell you that when I am serious about a goal, I meet that goal.

You may get in touch with my supervisor, Mr. Jesús A. Ramirez, Manager, the Mystery Museum, 618 Gopher Road, Gravity Falls, Oregon 97000 (555-327-4225) for an appraisal of my working habits.

I am running short on space. Please let me know if you need more information. I will promise you this: If you give me a chance, I will put my all into working hard and achieving good grades. It means more to me than you can know. All I need is that one chance. Thank you.

-Wendy Corduroy

P.O. Box 618

Gravity Falls, OR 97000

* * *

Before she could regret having written the essay or have second thoughts about it, Wendy sealed the envelope, stuck a stamp on it, and, biting her bottom lip, walked down the drive of the Mystery Shack, popped the envelope into the mailbox, and raised the flag. The mail carrier would be along in about an hour to pick it up.

The Admissions Officer at Cardell Junior College, a kindly-voiced woman, had assured her on the phone that there was room in the program for fall, if she could get the application in by Friday. This would be a week from tomorrow, and the Cardell campus in Morris was only twenty miles away. Everything else was already in, and surely by Monday they'd have this final document from her to complete her application.

Stanford, Mr. Halpers, and Mrs. Flanagan had all written glowing letters of recommendation (Stanford's was largely translated from Stanley-esque hyperbole). Soos had even practiced a dignified and enthusiastic response, should he be called or contacted. Everyone involved had been sworn to secrecy—neither Mabel nor, especially, Dipper, could know.

If she were accepted, classes would begin the week of Labor Day. Jugging high school, college classes, home, and work would be difficult—but she'd never shied away from a challenge and wouldn't start now.

Well, whatever. _Out of my hands, man._

"Don't let me down, Fate," Wendy murmured to the air. Still she hesitated—it seemed like such a big step to take on her own. It wouldn't take much to open the mailbox and pluck the envelope out again.

However, she left the box closed, shrugged, grinned, turned, and strode back up the drive humming.

What was the worst that could happen?

And even if it did, she had one little trick up her sleeve to get her into night school, regardless.

 _After all, I'm STILL a flippin' Corduroy!_

* * *

 _The End_


End file.
